A Review of the Fall 1996 Tour

Date: December 3


From: Tim Minnicks (tminnicks@electricpages.com) I'm writing this the morning after the show, December 4, 1996. I saw them last night at the Capital Ballroom in D.C. I'm going to save my Capital Ballroom bashes for the end of this review, so let's talk about the bands now... The show opened with Psychotica taking the stage. I thought they were really a good band. So good that I rushed over to the shirt table and bought there CD. I haven't listened to it yet, but I hope it sounds as good as they did last night. it's only a demo though with 4 songs on it. Oh well... After they played (approx 45 minutes) The lights went down and the video cameras started rolling with the white box on the CD cover. Tool opened with 3rd eye, and I think the next song was stinkfest. Maynard was painted half blue and Justin had blue dots painted all over his body. They didn't do the really long intro into Prison Sex like the other reviews said. Some of the stuff they played in no particular order: Sober, Eulogy, Opiate, 46 & 2, Pushit? I don't remember them playing Bottom or much else from the old albums, but then again I was busy getting thrown out for no fucking reason at all. What really amazed me was in the beginning of Eulogy, the beeping sound is actually Maynard making noises through a bullhorn. Fucking incredible and they didn't stray from the album at all. Everything sounded tight and perfect! They ended the show with Ænima. I thought that they should have ended with something else, but that's just my opinion. I've listened to the new CD alot but I'm not real familiar with tracks past #5 or 6. When they played Opiate, Maynard did say that this is there last song,,, "yeah, this is the last song...off our first album" Me and a few others were yelling Jerk-Off and this dork in front of us turns around and goes "what's that, a song???" Get a life dork boy! Alot of the time, Maynard sang with 2 microphones, one was a regular one and one was red, like a toy or something. I think the red one provided more of a scratchy sound for certain parts of songs because he switched back and forth alot while holding both mics in his hands. Eulogy was the fucking killer for me though. Maynard would face the drums and bend down and sing through the bullhorn when the "He had alot to say" parts were sang. Then stand up at the front of the stage and extend himself when the loud parts were sang. I also noticed Adam using a different guitar for certain songs. It was a wood colored Les Paul looking guitar. They also ran footage of the videos when they sang Sober and Prison Sex which I though was pretty cool. O.K., Commence Capital Ballroom bashing... The only part of the show I didn't like were the clowns in the STAFF shirts. You know the big monkey looking motherfuckers that throw you out if you sneeze the wrong way? Well, my girlfriend got elbowed in the mouth by one of these gorillas while he was throwing someone out. When he was walking back in, I asked him to apologize to her (and I wasn't rude or obnoxious, actually I was very polite) and he grabbed me and goes your fucking out of here! Needless to say, I paid $23.00 to miss half of the show and I did nothing wrong. I was actually against the wall away from the pit. Hello! evolve monkeyboys! Needless to say they wouldn't give us there names, pussies. That was my Tool experience...